OBSERVATION AS A SUCCESS FACTOR
Henry Ward Beecher was not so foolish as to think that he could get on
without systematic study, and a thorough-going knowledge of the world
of books. "When I first went to Brooklyn," he said, "men doubted
whether I could sustain myself. I replied, 'Give me uninterrupted time
till nine o'clock every morning, and I do not care what comes after.'"
He was a hard student during four hours every morning; those who saw
him after that imagined that he picked up the material for his sermons
on the street.
Yet having said so much, it is true that much that was most vital in
his preaching he did pick up on the street.
"Where does Mr. Beecher get his sermons?" every ambitious young
clergyman in the country was asking, and upon one occasion he answered:
"I keep my eyes open and ask questions."
This is the secret of many a man's success,--keeping his eyes open and
asking questions. Although Beecher was an omnivorous reader he did not
care much for the writings of the theologians; the Christ was his great
model, and he knew that He did not search the writings of the Sanhedrin
for His sermons, but picked them up as He walked along the banks of the
Jordan and over the hills and through the meadows and villages of
Galilee. He saw that the strength of this great Master's sermons was
in their utter simplicity, their naturalness.
Beecher's sermons were very simple, healthy, and strong. They pulsated
with life; they had the vigor of bright red blood in them, because,
like Christ's, they grew out of doors. He got them everywhere from
life and nature. He picked them up in the marketplace, on Wall Street,
in the stores. He got them from the brakeman, the mechanic, the
blacksmith, the day laborer, the newsboy, the train conductor, the
clerk, the lawyer, the physician, and the business man.
He did not watch the progress of the great human battle from his study,
as many did. He went into the thick of the fight himself. He was in
the smoke and din. Where the battle of life raged fiercest, there he
was studying its great problems. Now it was the problem of slavery;
again the problem of government, or commerce, or education,--whatever
touched the lives of men. He kept his hand upon the pulse of events.
He was in the swim of things. The great, busy, ambitious world was
everywhere throbbing for him.
[Illustration: Henry Ward Beecher]
When he once got a taste of the power and helpfulness which comes from
the study of real life, when he saw how much more forceful and
interesting actual life stories were as they were being lived than
anything he could get out of any book except the Bible, he was never
again satisfied without illustrations fresh from the lives of the
people he met every day.
Beecher believed a sermon a failure when it does not make a great mass
of hearers go away with a new determination to make a little more of
themselves, to do their work a little better, to be a little more
conscientious, a little more helpful, a little more determined to do
their share in the world.
This great observer was not only a student of human nature, but of all
nature as well. I watched him, many a time, completely absorbed in
drinking in the beauties of the marvelous landscape, gathering grandeur
and sublimity from the great White Mountains, which he loved so well,
and where he spent many summers.
He always preached on Sunday at the hotel where he stayed, and great
crowds came from every direction to hear him. There was something in
his sermons that appealed to the best in everyone who heard him. They
were full of pictures of beautiful landscapes, seascapes, and
entrancing sunsets. The clouds, the rain, the sunshine, and the storm
were reflected in them. The flowers, the fields, the brooks, the
record of creation imprinted in the rocks and the mountains were
intermingled with the ferryboats, the steam-cars, orphans, calamities,
accidents, all sorts of experiences and bits of life. Happiness and
sunshine, birds and trees alternated with the direst poverty in the
slums, people on sick beds and death beds, in hospitals and in funeral
processions; life pictures of successes and failures, of the
discouraged, the despondent, the cheerful, the optimist and the
pessimist, passed in quick succession and stamped themselves on the
brains of his eager hearers.
Wherever he went, Beecher continued his study of life through
observation. Nothing else was half so interesting. To him man was the
greatest study in the world. To place the right values upon men, to
emphasize the right thing in them, to be able to discriminate between
the genuine and the false, to be able to pierce their masks and read
the real man or woman behind them, he regarded as one of a clergyman's
greatest accomplishments.
Like Professor Agassiz, who could see wonders in the scale of a fish or
a grain of sand, Beecher had an eye like the glass of a microscope,
which reveals marvels of beauty in common things. He could see beauty
and harmony where others saw only ugliness and discord, because he read
the hidden meaning in things. Like Ruskin, he could see the marvelous
philosophy, the Divine plan, in the lowliest object. He could feel the
Divine presence in all created things.
"An exhaustive observation," says Herbert Spencer, "is an element of
all great success." There is no position in life where a trained eye
can not be made a great success asset.
"Let's leave it to Osler," said the physicians at a consultation where
a precious life hung by a thread. Then the great Johns Hopkins
professor examined the patient. He did not ask questions. His
experienced eye drew a conclusion from the slightest evidence. He
watched the patient closely; his manner of breathing, the appearance of
the eye,--everything was a telltale of the patient's condition, which
he read as an open book. He saw symptoms which others could not see.
He recommended a certain operation, which was performed, and the
patient recovered. The majority of those present disagreed with him,
but such was their confidence in his power to diagnose a case through
symptoms and indications which escape most physicians, that they were
willing to leave the whole decision to him. Professor Osler was called
a living X-ray machine, with additional eyes in finger tips so familiar
with the anatomy that they could detect a growth or displacement so
small that it would escape ordinary notice.
The power which inheres in a trained faculty of observation is
priceless. The education which Beecher got through observation, by
keeping his eyes, his ears, and his mind open, meant a great deal more
to him and to the world than his college education. He was not a great
scholar; he did not stand nearly as high in college as some of his
classmates whom he far outstripped in life, but his mind penetrated to
the heart of things.
Lincoln was another remarkable example of the possibilities of an
education through reflection upon what he observed. His mind stopped
and questioned, and extracted the meaning of everything that came
within its range. Wherever he went, there was a great interrogation
point before him. Everything he saw must give up its secret before he
would let it go. He had a passion for knowledge; he yearned to know
the meaning of things, the philosophy underlying the common, everyday
occurrences.
Ruskin says: "Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think; but
thousands can think for one who can see."
I once traveled abroad with two young men, one of whom was all
eyes,--nothing seemed to escape him,--and the other never saw anything.
The day after leaving a city, the latter could scarcely recall anything
of interest, while the former had a genius for absorbing knowledge of
every kind through the eye. Things so trivial that his companion did
not notice them at all, meant a great deal to him. He was a poor
student, but he brought home rich treasures from over the sea. The
other young man was comparatively rich, and brought home almost nothing
of value.
While visiting Luther Burbank, the wizard horticulturist, in his famous
garden, recently, I was much impressed by his marvelous power of seeing
things. He has observed the habits of fruits and flowers to such
purpose that he has performed miracles in the fields of floriculture
and horticulture. Stunted and ugly flowers and fruits, under the eye
of this miracle worker, become marvels of beauty.
George W. Cortelyou was a stenographer not long ago. Many people
thought he would remain a stenographer, but he always kept his eyes
open. He was after an opportunity. Promotion was always staring him
in the face. He was always looking for the next step above him. He
was a shrewd observer. But for this power of seeing things quickly, of
absorbing knowledge, he would never have advanced.
The youth who would get on must keep his eyes open, his ears open, his
mind open. He must be quick, alert, ready.
I know a young Turk, who has been in this country only a year, yet he
speaks our language fluently. He has studied the map of our country.
He knows its geography, and a great deal of our history, and much about
our resources and opportunities. He said that when he landed in New
York it seemed to him that he saw more opportunities in walking every
block of our streets than he had ever seen in the whole of Turkey. And
he could not understand the lethargy, the lack of ambition, the
indifference of our young men to our marvelous possibilities.
The efficient man is always growing. He is always accumulating
knowledge of every kind. He does not merely look with his eyes. He
sees with them. He keeps his ears open. He keeps his mind open to all
that is new and fresh and helpful.
The majority of people do not _see_ things; they just _look_ at them.
The power of keen observation is indicative of a superior mentality;
for it is the mind, not the optic nerve, that really sees.
Most people are too lazy, mentally, to see things carefully. Close
observation is a powerful mental process. The mind is all the time
working over the material which the eye brings it, considering, forming
opinions, estimating, weighing, balancing, calculating.
Careless, indifferent observation does not go back of the eye. If the
mind is not focused, the image is not clean-cut, and is not carried
with force and distinctness enough to the brain to enable it to get at
the truth and draw accurate conclusions.
The observing faculty is particularly susceptible to culture, and is
capable of becoming a mighty power. Few people realize what a
tremendous success and happiness is possible through the medium of the
eye.
The telegraph, the sewing machine, the telephone, the telescope, the
miracles of electricity, in fact, every great invention of the past or
present, every triumph of modern labor-saving machinery, every
discovery in science and art, is due to the trained power of seeing
things.
The whole secret of a richly stored mind is alertness, sharp, keen
attention, and thoughtfulness. Indifference, apathy, mental lassitude
and laziness are fatal to all effective observation.
It does not take long to develop a habit of attention that seizes the
salient points of things.
It is a splendid drill for children to send them out on the street, or
out of doors anywhere, just for the purpose of finding out how many
things they can see in a certain given time, and how closely they can
observe them. Just the effort to try to see how much they can remember
and bring back is a splendid drill. Children often become passionately
fond of this exercise, and it becomes of inestimable value in their
lives.
Other things equal, it is the keen observer who gets ahead. Go into a
place of business with the eye of an eagle. Let nothing escape you.
Ask yourself why it is that the proprietor at fifty or sixty years of
age is conducting a business which a boy of eighteen or twenty ought to
be able to handle better. Study his employees; analyze the situation.
You will find perhaps that he never knew the value of good manners in
clerks. He thought a boy, if honest, would make a good salesman; but,
perhaps, by gruff, uncouth manners, he is driving out of the door
customers the proprietor is trying to bring in by advertisements. You
will see by his show windows, perhaps, before you go into his store,
that there is no business insight, no detection of the wants of
possible buyers. If you keep your eyes open, you can, in a little
while, find out why this man is not a greater success. You can see
that a little more knowledge of human nature would have revolutionized
his whole business, multiplied the receipts tenfold in a few years.
You will see that this man has not studied men. He does not know them.
No matter where you go, study the situation. Think why the man does
not do better if he is not doing well, why he remains in mediocrity all
his life. If he is making a remarkable success, try to find out why.
Keep your eyes open, your ears open. Make deductions from what you see
and hear. Trace difficulties; look up evidences of success or failure
everywhere. It will be one of the greatest factors in your own success.